A number of conversions were carried out in later years, with the addition of beds to some to create sleeping cars, and buffet modules fitted to others to provide on-board catering facilities.

Included were visits to the American Car and Foundry, Missouri, as well as a sampling of the services provided by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's trains, the Royal Blue and Abraham Lincoln.

Based on the findings of his visit, Clapp insisted that the new train would have the best possible insulation (from track sound and vibrations, as well as extremes of temperature), air-conditioning, and yet to be of similar weight and capacity of the then-standard E carriage fleet.

Each passenger compartment also included roller blinds over the windows, and an individual radiator fitted to the outer wall and protected with a steel grille.

With the completion of the Steel Bulk Mail van, one second-class carriage was deleted from the standard Spirit of Progress consist leaving eleven cars in daily use.

Shortly after Clapp's visit to America, the rollingstock branch used the new lessons to produce a design for an altered E type carriage with an internal buffet.

In its place, E type carriage Wimmera was removed from passenger service, refitted and renamed as the new Medical Test and Vision car from October 1938.

The new cars were used to provide the same roadside service as the 750-class carriages, which had previously been used for passengers wishing to travel only part of the length of The Overland – for example, to and from Stawell or Horsham.

The carriages previously fitted with gold leaf had this replaced with Dulux 16078 Yellow, which better matched the paint of the new diesels and was much cheaper to apply and touch-up.

Repainting was slow, and in the short term the railways chose to use transfers instead of liquid paint with stencils, to ensure accuracy when applying class designations and the 2" and 3" stripes along the sides of the carriages.

Occasionally a yellow transfer would be placed on a red carriage where the silver stripes had previously been; this would result in a cream colour, both for lines and lettering.

All were painted in blue and yellow from the outset, and were constructed in a similar fashion to the last of the AS fleet, with smooth sides other than the dual line of rivets down the bottom of the carriage.

Notably, around this time the Z type carriages were introduced; these were of a similar design but with a saloon layout internally, with two rows of seats either side of a central walkway in lieu of compartments.

The cars converted in 1962 were: The steel carriages had art-deco font "VR" logos added at the corners, as well as car-number holding plates; however these were not applied in time for the inaugural run.

Including the E and Z type fleets, there were then 21 first-class, 3 composite and 23 second-class air-conditioned sitting carriages on the broad gauge, along with special cars Moorabool, Avoca, Murray and Norman.

3MBS had originally been allocated to the Mildura Sunlight up to April 1967; when that train was cancelled in favour of The Vinelander the vehicle was temporarily stored then re-allocated to the Albury Express in July of the same year.

In 1981, a new livery was introduced with an all-over orange body, black below platform level, and two thick silver stripes along the sides at window height.

A total of fifteen S type carriages were reconfigured, either from first class to economy seating at $62,000 each or from AS, MRS and MBS to buffet cars at $200,000 each, with the works taking place at Ballarat Workshops.

[14] The non-buffet cars retained axle-driven generators and 48VDC power supplies, and so unlike the N type carriages then being introduced it was not possible to share the electrical load between vehicles.

A proposal was floated to fit the cars with fluted sides like the then-modern Hitachi and Comeng electric trains, but the concept was rejected following a trial on BRN19.

[29] 3ABS was converted in 1956 and painted in blue and yellow (over its previous red with silver scheme as 9AS), for use on the Daylight Express from Melbourne to Albury, connecting with a train to Sydney.

To provide for the Spirit of Progress's conversion to Standard Gauge from 1962, two of the BS class carriages were converted to composite sitting/sleeping cars, for the run from Melbourne to Canberra.

The four cars, plus E type carriage Taggerty, were used to provide lunch and dinner services on trains that needed to run express, and so couldn't afford to make stops at Railway Refreshment Rooms.

As the roster included some stops at stations with refreshment facilities less onboard capacity was required, so the benches were reduced to only 19 eating passengers and the remainder of the car length was used for regular first-class compartments, as provided in AS-class sitting carriages.

The cars were stored at Newport Workshops during the second world war, as onboard catering services were not practical with limited fuel and locomotive resources.

After the war Tanjil ran on The Gippslander and Moorabool was a spare retained at the Spencer Street dining car depot; by 1952 these allocations had reversed.

[54] In March 1956, a new Daylight Express was introduced between Melbourne and Sydney (with passengers changing trains at Albury), including an assortment of AS, BS, and AZ and BZ sitting carriages, and one of the S type buffet cars.

In April 1957 the car was moved from the Spirit of Progress across to the Daylight train, allowing passengers to better enjoy the view form the rear carriage.

The flat end was refitted with a small 11 ft 2.6875 in (3.42 m) office/meeting area with four individual seats provided, replacing the former guard compartment and male bathroom.

Then, around 2000, the car was repainted into a facsimile of the original E type carriage scheme, with a dark red body outlined with yellow lines and dots.